


take my hand (take my whole heart too.)

by orphan_account



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: AN EXCERPT FROM THE SPY AU, Gen, M/M, idk fluff, winil pls interact i miss u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-25
Updated: 2019-03-25
Packaged: 2019-12-07 13:50:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18235739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Taeil has this terrible habit of never saying goodbye to Sicheng before he goes on missions. He says, “I’ll see you in a while,” instead.





	take my hand (take my whole heart too.)

**Author's Note:**

> THIS ONE IS FOR MAYA @namethesay_17 on twt I LOVE U OOMF

Taeil has this terrible habit of never saying goodbye to Sicheng before he goes on missions. He says, “I’ll see you in a while,” instead. 

It’s been like that for as long as Sicheng has known him. The first time he said it, he was going after a mob boss traced all the way to the darkest cities in the Middle East, and he’d smiled from across the room while loading his bag with guns and waved as he said it. They weren’t dating-dating back then, meaning they’d hooked up one night instead of working on data collection like they were supposed to and then never had the time to talk about it again, since they were constantly surrounded by other people or jetting off to another country to rob people for the government. Sicheng hadn’t thought much of it back then, and had hummed and told him to take care as he left. 

The second and third time are when Sicheng has to leave, maybe three or four months after they start dating-dating. Like, properly dating. Sicheng mentions that he’s headed to Germany for a while, and Taeil tells him to be careful and listen to whoever is in the control room and that he’ll see him later. It was casual. He didn’t even realize that he hadn’t said goodbye until Jungwoo points it out.

Then it continues.

The tenth time it’s when Sicheng came home after a year and half of being abroad to find that Taeil was gone, undercover in Russia, and he finds a note stuck into his side of the bed that reads, “I’ll see you later,” in rushed, clipped handwriting. “Later” in this context had meant another six months after that, because “the mafia are a pain in the ass to deal with,”. He’d grinned brightly, standing at the doorway with blood on his shoes and dirt on his cheek, and said, “Hey, I did say I’d be back later,” and Sicheng was so overwhelmed that the first thing he did was hurl the stapler at Taeil’s head and then kiss him breathless until Taeyong kindly asked him to unhand Taeil so that he could get the mission report.

And then it went on like that. For years. There’d be months where he’d disappear, and the most Sicheng would hear from him would be short radio messages, usually reminding him to do something. A year after they started dating, the radio message had been, remember to pick up Hyuck from the academy. Love you. A few months later, it was its going to get cold soon, so wear a coat when you go out. Love you. Then there had been, don’t be too hard on Renjun, I know you’re mentoring him but he’s still your brother. Love you. 

The thing is, those come in once every few weeks or so. Taeil could die in between the time it takes for the messages to travel and Sicheng would never know what happened to him.

And that’s what really throws him off about Taeil’s stubbornness on never saying goodbye to him.

Sicheng knows it’s coming from a good place. They’ve been together four years now, occasionally arguing so much that Taeil sleeps in HQ and Sicheng sleeps on the floor three doors away and then making up a few days later when either one of them decided they were tired of bitching at each other over nothing, and through out that time, Taeil always makes it a point to tell Sicheng that he loves him. It’s awkward sometimes, because a part of Sicheng still sees Taeil as the unapproachable senior from work he used to know instead of his own boyfriend, but it doesn’t deter Taeil, not in the least bit. 

He probably doesn’t want to say goodbye because he wants to keep coming back to Sicheng. It hurts because logically, Sicheng knows that one day, he won’t return, and he’s afraid of wondering where it will leave him if that happens.

_____

“I broke Yuna on the field,” Taeil says, as soon as he crawls into bed that night.

He has this ridiculous habit of not wearing socks to sleep even during winter, but Sicheng’s mostly used to how bruisingly cold his skin is. Sicheng hums as cold hands press against his waist and pull him closer, eyes still shut as he focuses on the soft sound of blankets rustling and Michael Bublé playing on the speakers. He feels Taeil’s lips press against his throat, a gentle flutter before it’s gone and his cheek is pressed against Sicheng’s neck. It’s amazing, how he fits next to Sicheng like a missing piece of a puzzle.

“We’ll get another Yuna,” Sicheng tells him. He puts his arm around Taeil and runs his fingers over the wrapped bandages at his torso. “She was getting old anyway.”

“She was your best pistol.” Taeil muffles a yawn. He hasn’t slept a wink since he got back to HQ, clearing up the details with Johnny’s incomplete mission and interrogating suspects and staring at heat maps until he fell asleep at the table. He’d smelled like gunpowder and blood when he’d broken away from Sicheng, mumbling something about work, work, work, but now he smells like the citrus body wash he’s addicted to mixed with the scent of the candle on their bedside that Yangyang had developed in the labs a week ago. 

“She was.” Yuna was the pistol Sicheng had used during his initiation test, the pistol he’d held at Taeyong’s throat when he caught him as the task said, the pistol he’d shot for Taeyong all few months later when they were on a mission together and his leader got caught by the enemy. Still, Yuna was just a pistol, and if the pistol was what had to go for Taeil to come back home, then Sicheng could live with it. “But it’s just a pistol, so don’t worry about it.”

There’s a pause. Sicheng can feel Taeil’s eyelashes against the skin of his neck, the rise of his cheek when he smiles.

“I thought of you every day while I was in Taipei,” he finally mumbles, and it’s lame and cheesy and yet Sicheng’s heart has the audacity to skip a beat like it’s the first time he’s hearing Taeil say something like that. “I’m sorry I took so long in coming back.”

There’s a gun on the ground where he’d dropped it when he’d come in, bloodstains from a mission a year ago that they’d never gotten around to removing, Taeil’s ID and badge discarded in the bowl where Sicheng keeps the car keys and the emergency tasers. There’s the torn shreds of the tie he’d been wearing when he came back, the flowers he’d gotten Sicheng to apologize for not being able to see him the whole day. 

There’ll be many days like this. Taeil will come home covered in blood or skin scrubbed raw or with a bullet lodged in his shoulder or with his will clutched in his hands because he wasn’t sure if he’d make it and thought he should give it to Sicheng before he dies or he’ll come home laughing and throw himself at Sicheng and Sicheng will laugh with him and spin in a circle with him because it makes him laugh more. Sometimes it’ll be bad because killing people hurts Taeil more than he cares to admit and he’ll come home unsmiling, and on those days Sicheng will catch him when he falls into his arms and buries his face into the crook of his neck. Sometimes it’ll be Sicheng coming home feeling like the world was resting on the slopes of his shoulders, like there’s a bullet lodged in his throat, and in those days he’ll allow himself to be taken care of.

And sometimes Sicheng will be the one coming home to an empty apartment, placing funny looking duck stickers on the calendar to mark the dates where Taeil hasn’t been home, or he’ll be the one leaving Taeil behind with a kiss and an “I’ll see you in a while, my love,” that echoes in his head hours after Taeil’s mumbled or against his lips. 

There’ll be days where he’s the one standing alone in a foreign country wishing he could hear Taeil’s voice and hating that his job meant that he couldn’t contact Taeil until he was done, days where he’d be stuck in gritty situations with a gun to his temple and blood on his hands and he’ll have to force himself to make it out of it alive because he absolutely had to come home. 

There’ll be good days, and there’ll be bad days, and then there’ll be the worst days, and then there’ll be better days again. 

“As long as you come back, I’m fine with waiting,” Sicheng says, and for the first time in a while, he holds Taeil closer, and properly smiles.


End file.
